Downsized
by gleefullyyours
Summary: Everyone has to deal with unexpected change sometimes, and it's not always change for the better. Moreover, it rarely comes at a good time, which is what happens to poor Finn here. Written as a mini-moment in my NYC future!fic series, February 2010.


**Title:** Downsized

**Characters:** Finn (and his thoughts)

**Rating: **PG

**Author's Notes:** There's a horrible and immense blanket of "what's going to happen next?" that falls over one's life with the event I've put poor Finn through in this ficlet. It's one I'm familiar with, having experienced it twice in the past year - once just the day before I wrote this story. I think this was my way of taking a bit of the weight of it all off my shoulders, getting it out there in 747 words. It's a mini-moment in my NYC future!'verse series, and it was definitely born out of that feeling of despair that I know well.

**Addendum, 6-26-10: **I wrote this and put it on my own fic journal in February and actually forgot to post it here until today. LOL! I left this little tale in a fairly sad place, and actually haven't written anything in this 'verse since. I'm currently working on something that continues after "Persuasion, However Unconventional" that answers a few questions and brightens the trajectory of this 'verse a bit. I know this story isn't a happy one, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.

* * *

The train lurches to a stop, brakes squealing against the tracks, doors sliding open with a creaking swoosh.

There's familiarity in it, in all the sounds and the motions of the world around him. It's his Everyday, and it's all about to change.

The doors close again, and they're off, hurtling around curves and up slight grades, twisting like a turbo-charged mole through the underground tunnels beneath the city.

He's no fan of change, at least when he hasn't initiated it. And he certainly wasn't ready for the hand he was dealt this afternoon – who _could've_ been, really? Three years at that desk, piled with papers bearing his name on the letterhead, his files strewn across the desktop of his computer; it's all gone. At least, it will be in two weeks.

The items that made him smile in the midst of the day-to-day drudgery are tucked in the bag on his lap, little treasures that brought home to work, and are returning home once again. A birthday card from his mom, the ticket from opening night of the strangest play he's ever seen (yet he couldn't have been prouder to see his fiancée onstage), a 4x6 wedding photo – an unposed candid, his favorite shot from the day – and an ultrasound photo, "Hudson, Rachel" printed in block capitals across the top.

Holy _shit_, was this ever bad timing.

Again, they jerk to a stop, and he braces his feet against the floor for support. Old passengers exit and new passengers board, filling in the empty spaces around him.

Empty. That's how he feels.

The letter folded in half and slipped into the zippered inside pocket of his bag, full of formal words and phrases that fail to disguise their far uglier, far simpler meaning, isn't typed on pink paper, but it may as well be.

The coffee in his hand had still been hot, fresh from a visit to the Dunkin Donuts on the corner as he returned from his lunch break, when his boss had stopped him on his way out of the elevator. The familiar steps to his desk had detoured instead to the windowed office in the corner, and the click of the door's latch had rung ominous in his ears as he'd taken a seat across his boss's wide desk.

He'd sat there dozens of times before, receiving praise for a project well done or trembling through his annual performance review. But this was different. This was final.

It was so cliché, the same folded hands and look of mock concern, the same words of advice for a future that wouldn't include this company, the same scene that he was sure he'd seen in at least a half-dozen movies. If it hadn't been so awful, it might've been laughable. But no. Not quite.

A grinding halt, the whisper and clank of the doors, an influx of new, and a surge outward into the dimly lit station; he's a part of the latter this time, swinging his bag over his shoulder as he exits.

His feet move of their own volition, his mind far away from the briefcases jostling around him. One-sided cell phone conversations pass him in Doppler Effect on the stairs, coming and going and leaving a snippet of someone else's life rattling through his brain.

He doesn't call home. She's not back from work yet anyway, and besides, this is a conversation he has to have in person, as much as he doesn't want to have it at all. There's an admission of failure in the words, a sense of falling short as a provider. She'd never say it, he knows. (He hopes.) But that doesn't stop the dread that fills his chest, threatening to suffocate him.

He opens the front door of their building and checks the mailbox like it's just another day. Two pre-approved credit card offers, three bills. His breath hitches in his throat as he stares at them.

Holy shit, was this ever bad timing.

(But then, is there _good_ timing for losing a job? He decides it isn't worth pondering.)

Coat off, bag tossed on the floor by the kitchen table, cat fed; another set of simple moments in the Everyday. He wonders how many things besides his daily commute will change in fourteen days, how many will change in a few hours when he's no longer alone in this apartment.

He sits down heavily at the table, puts one hand over his face, and waits.


End file.
